Monitoring, such as video surveillance of aircraft while on the ground, for example, at a gate at an airport, is a highly desirable capability by airlines to secure the aircraft cabin, flight deck, cargo areas and other areas onboard where security may be important. Monitoring loading and unloading operations on aircraft in the cargo area is important for many airlines to ensure secure and cost effective operation. One area of concern is baggage tampering or damage during flight that has an impact on passenger satisfaction and reputation of the airline. Another reason is to understand the bottlenecks in the gate Turn Around Time (TAT) critical to improve operational efficiency. Wireless gate links (Wi-Fi and Cellular) are currently available to provide off-board communications. Wi-Fi systems however are subject to congestion near the airport terminal area and cannot reliably provide video streaming off of the airplane due to the requirement to have multiple video streams of about 1 to about 3 Megabits per second (Mbps) for the surveillance system. In addition the security of the Wi-Fi system may be an issue. Cellular gate link may be more secure; however, current 3G capabilities are limited in bandwidth. 4G capability provides a higher bandwidth but the cost may be prohibitive to provide constant streaming of high bandwidth video over the cellular backbone.